Can you identify the language, and do you know where it’s spoken?
7 thoughts on “Language quiz”
Well, my ears tell me that it might be a language from the Afro-Asiatic family, but excluding the Semitic members. Maybe a Berber dialect?
hmm it has some “english” influence … i think I heard “locally” in between.
Here’s a clue – this is a Cushitic language.
Setting aside Oromo and Somali my choice is Afar, spoken mainly in Djibouti.
That’s crazy! I swear I heard Hindi/Urdu words in the middle of this…”aise (‘thus’ or ‘that way’)…baRi (‘big’, feminine)…gali (‘lane’; maybe even “woh gali” meaning ‘that lane’)…malaai (‘clotted cream’)…” (although “aise” was admittedly pronounced [ai] like in Dakhini, instead of the lax vowel [E] that you hear in Standard Hindi/Urdu).
Well, my ears tell me that it might be a language from the Afro-Asiatic family, but excluding the Semitic members. Maybe a Berber dialect?
hmm it has some “english” influence … i think I heard “locally” in between.
Here’s a clue – this is a Cushitic language.
Setting aside Oromo and Somali my choice is Afar, spoken mainly in Djibouti.
That’s crazy! I swear I heard Hindi/Urdu words in the middle of this…”aise (‘thus’ or ‘that way’)…baRi (‘big’, feminine)…gali (‘lane’; maybe even “woh gali” meaning ‘that lane’)…malaai (‘clotted cream’)…” (although “aise” was admittedly pronounced [ai] like in Dakhini, instead of the lax vowel [E] that you hear in Standard Hindi/Urdu).
Perhaps even crazier, Daydreamer is right again. See the last clip on http://globalrecordings.net/en/program/C02110 (16. The Rich Man and Lazarus).
Oh, wait, “aise” actually was pronounced as in Standard Hindi/Urdu. Never mind! Anyway, yes, it’s really Afar 🙂
The answer is indeed Afar (ʿAfár af), a Cushitic language spoken in Ethiopia, Djibouti and Eritrea.
The recording comes from the GRN (16. The Rich Man and Lazarus).